In a flash, an elderly woman who shares Anderson’s coloring and features approaches us, sparing me a cutting look designed to knock me down a peg or two. In a flurry of Givenchy, he’s swept away, and I’m alone once more.
If I had my way, we wouldn’t attend these parties, save this one, wouldn’t attempt to ingratiate ourselves to Palm Beach society. It isn’t about what I want, though. It’s about my mother, and my sisters, and my father’s need to extend his business empire through these social connections so no one ever has the power to destroy us again.
And of course, as always, it’s about Alejandro.
I head for one of the balconies off the ballroom, the hem of my gown gathered in hand, careful to keep from tearing the delicate fabric.
I slip through the open doors, stepping onto the stone terrace, the breeze blowing the skirt of my dress. There’s a slight chill in the air, the sky clear, the stars shining down, the moon full. The ocean is a dull, distant roar. It’s the sound of my childhood, my adulthood, calling to me like a siren song. I close my eyes, a sting there, and pretend I’m standing on another balcony, in another country, in another time. What would happen if I headed for the water now, if I left the party behind, removing the pinching shoes and curling my toes in the sand, the ocean pooling around my ankles?
A tear trickles down my cheek. I never imagined it was possible to miss a place this much.
I rub my damp skin with the back of my hand, my gaze shifting to the balcony’s edge, to the palms swaying in the distance.
A man leans against the balustrade, one side of him shrouded in darkness, the rest illuminated by a shaft of moonlight.
He’s tall. Blond hair—nearly reddish, really. His arms brace against the railing, his shoulders straining his tailored tuxedo.
I step back, and he moves—
I freeze.
Oh.
Oh.
The thing about people telling you you’re beautiful your whole life is that the more you hear it, the more meaningless it becomes. What does “beautiful” even mean anyway? That your features are arranged in a shape someone, somewhere, arbitrarily decided is pleasing? “Beautiful” never quite matches up to the other things you could be: smart, interesting, brave. And yet—
He’s beautiful. Shockingly so.
He appears as though he’s been painted in broad strokes, his visage immortalized by exuberant sweeps and swirls of the artist’s brush, a god come down to meddle in the affairs of mere mortals.
Irritatingly beautiful.
He looks like the sort of man who has never had to wonder if he’ll have a roof over his head, or fear his father dying in a cage with eight other men, or flee the only life he has ever known. No, he looks like the sort of man who is told he is perfection from the moment he wakes in the morning to the moment his head hits the pillow at night.
He’s noticed me, too.
Golden Boy leans against the railing, his broad arms crossed in front of his chest. His gaze begins at the top of my head where Isabel and I fussed with my coiffure for an hour, cursing the absence of a maid to help us. From my dark hair, he traverses the length of my face, down to the décolletage exposed by the gown’s low bodice, the gaudy fake jewels that suddenly make me feel unmistakably cheap—as though he can see I am an impostor—to my waist, hips.
I take another step back.
“Am I to call you cousin?”
His words stop my movement, holding me in place as surely as a hand coming to rest on my waist, as though he is the sort of man accustomed to bending others to his will with little to no effort at all.
I loathe such men.
His voice sounds like what I have learned passes for money in this country: smooth, crisp, devoid of even a hint of foreignness—the wrong kind, at least. A tone of voice secure in the knowledge that every word will be savored.
I arch my brow. “Excuse me?”
He pushes off from the railing, his long legs closing the distance between us. He stops once he’s close enough that I have to tip my head up to meet his gaze.
His eyes are blue, the color of the deep parts of the water off the Malecón.
Without breaking eye contact, he reaches between us, his thumb ghosting across my bare ring finger. His touch is a shock, waking me from the slumber of a party I tired of hours ago. He quirks his mouth in a smile, little lines crinkling around his eyes. How nice to see even gods have flaws.
“Andrew is my cousin,” he offers by way of explanation, his tone faintly amused.
I find that most rich people who are still in fact rich manage to pull this off as though a dollop more amusement would be atrociously gauche.
Andrew. The fifth marriage proposal has a name. And the man before me likely has a prestigious one. Is he a Preston or merely related to one like Andrew?
“We were all waiting with breathless anticipation to see what you would say,” he comments.
There’s that faint amusement again, a weapon of sorts when honed appropriately. He possesses the same edge to him that everyone here seems to have, except I get the sense he is laughing with me, not at me, which is a welcome change.
I grace him with a smile, the edges sanded down a bit. “Your cousin has an impeccable sense of timing and an obvious appreciation for drawing a crowd.”
“Not to mention excellent taste,” Golden Boy counters smoothly—too smoothly—returning my smile with another one of his own, this one even more dazzling than the first.
He was handsome before, but this is simply ridiculous.
“True,” I agree.
I have little use for false modesty these days; if you’re not going to fight for yourself, who will?
He leans into me a bit more, as though we share a secret. “No wonder you’ve whipped everyone into a frenzy.”
“Who? Me?”
He chuckles, the sound low, seductive, like the first sip of rum curling in your belly.
“You know the effect you have. I saw you in the ballroom.”
How did I miss him? He doesn’t exactly blend in with the crowd.
“And what did you see?” I ask, emboldened by the fact that his gaze has yet to drift away.
“You.”
My heartbeat quickens.
“Just you.” His voice is barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the ocean and the wind.
“I didn’t see you.” My own voice sounds husky, like it belongs to someone else, someone who is rattled by this.
My gaze has yet to drift from him, either.
His eyes widen slightly, a dimple denting his cheek, another imperfection to hoard even if it adds more character than flaw.